


Wake Up and Wake Up

by Zither



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Dreams, F/F, Flashbacks, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Torture, Memories, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-24 03:25:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4903786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zither/pseuds/Zither
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eriana dreams, grieves, and begins to formulate a plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Place

**Author's Note:**

> ERIS: You would wield a weapon of the night?
> 
> ERIANA-3: For her – them? I will butcher any who stand in my way with even the darkest blade.
> 
> -Grimoire Card: Blades of Crota

The gun was hers now. She had brought the edge of her hand down across the enemy’s wrist, felt it snap on impact. In the split second after its fingers went limp, she had done the same to its neck. Its wide, wet eyes stared up at her, strange and familiar. A stranger, or as good as. Stepping over it, she cocked the hammer just in time to fire once, twice, three times at backup rising out of the grass. Sixty-six per cent accuracy. Backup made a strangled sound as it fell; that voice she knew, but a bullet pinged off her elbow and caught part of her attention. There were protocols. No vital damage, said the cheery blue light. Shut off pain signals and return fire. Easy enough to trace.

Almost there.

The wind was at her back. Wheat and blood smells passed through her filters together, intermingling. Bare hands were more than sufficient, but a gun would get her there faster. Shapes arrayed themselves in front of her, moving in swift, predictable patterns. One of them screamed a word. She drew a bead on its head just as it vanished, allies scattering out of the way. That threw her aim off long enough for another face to leap out of the crowd, shotgun at the ready. She recognised that face. She had argued with it, agreed with it, stood side by side with it and raised a palm to push it away. There were protocols. The others pressed forward, surrounding them in a ring. Every single set of features spoke to her.

Please don’t, she said, and the gun kicked over and over in her hand until it ran dry and made her reload. I’m to be born today. One shot landed square in the middle of her opponent’s chest; a groan rose from the soldiers as it crumpled, shotgun barrel swinging up and away. Another enemy rushed her, cloak fluttering in the breeze, and she grabbed a fistful of fabric and threw the thing down flat on its face and trod it into the chaff where it lay. There were protocols. The sun hung high and hot above her. It swung lower, filled her head and her hands. She caught light. Atoms fused in her grasp. Soldiers ran, crying out, and were overwhelmed by a barrage of tiny stars. Use every available weapon. There were protocols. She had won.

Behind her, the fields were burning. Before her, the tower rose up into the sky and sank down into the earth. It will stand forever, she said, because it has stood forever. I’m to be born today. All I have to do is -

“Is reach it,” said a voice, a dead voice, a dead voice strong enough to stop her stumbling, stupid, insensate body in its tracks. “Which isn’t going to happen.”

It was in front of her. She had been so careful, guarded herself against flanking manoeuvres as best she could. I’m to be born today – but the figure before her blotted out the tower and the sky. Like its predecessors, it wore full armour. Its shoulders were a rampart; its feet a foundation.

I don’t remember you, she said. I’m to be born today.

They regarded each other. Her world became the mirrored surface of its visor, the scorch marks on its chestplate. Then it sprang.

She brought the gun up. She did not bring the gun up fast enough. She did not think, based on initial assessment, that there was any way she could have brought the gun up fast enough. It spun out of her hand when the enemy’s body struck hers, landed more than five and less than ten metres away. In under a second, the enemy had both her wrists pinned above her head. Her knee drove into its plated belly hard enough to make it recoil, but its weight across her torso was more than enough to keep her down. When she tried to rise, it hit her across the jaw; a pulled punch, punishing all the same. The fingers on both her hands clenched and unclenched in futile preparation.

It brought its helmet closer to her own and spoke clear, recognisable words:

“Nice try, 3. You’ll have to get up earlier than that if you want to beat me at close quarters.”

I can’t remember you, she told it. Go. The fires were closer now, crackling all around. She borrowed some of their heat, let it spill out over her skin; the enemy drew back with a yelp. An advantage. Her wrists slipped free of its grip and then she was halfway to her knees, snarling into its blank face. The odds of her winning increased with each second she fought.

They fell again when it headbutted her.

More outraged than hurt, she let herself collapse back into the dust. A small support cable had torn loose in her shoulder. If she could just retrieve the gun… but the enemy was rolling her over now, pulling her intact elbow up across her back. It whispered more words as it did so, fierce and tender and wrong. She tensed her arm against the hold, threatening torsion. I won’t remember you. There are protocols.

“Hey,” the voice said, close to her ear. She heard it everywhere: between her shoulders, behind her knees, underneath the pump working overtime in her chest. “Come on. It’s only me.”

She heaved to throw it off. The motion was half-hearted at best.

“You’re Eriana-3.” All she could hear was her enemy’s breathing. The rightness of that name was hidden somewhere between those breaths. “You were born a long time ago, once and again. Eriana. That was the name you chose.”

“I chose,” she said, and the pressure let up a little. “You – I chose…”

“Yeah.” A lumpish word, but the speaker’s improbable happiness made it sing. “So did I.”

Her opponent could see her, she realised; could see right through her, as far inward as she went. She saw her opponent with just as much clarity, all the details of skin and soul laid bare. They were not enemies. Was the same true of everyone she’d ever killed?

Eriana-3 – Eriana – spoke another name. Her own was easy to forget. This one would come back to her in the dark, at the heart of a thorny maze, after the final closure.

 _Wei Ning_ took her arm and pulled her up through the white water.

No fire. No gun. No wheatfields, no corpses, no rearing tower. Just shallow ocean as far as even her eyes could see, and the sky an inverted bowl of light over their heads. Wei knelt, hands cupped, and let a splash of milky surf pool between her palms. There were lifeforms caught up in it, each one a tiny world. Eriana smiled, uncomprehending.

Wei smiled back, letting the froth trickle away through her fingers. “Still want to go home?”

“Never,” Eriana said. “I don’t – I can’t. I won’t.”

“You can,” Wei said, and rose to her feet. “Just get better at killing.”

They were two strides apart. Eriana closed the distance in one. “Like hell. We’ve plateaued right at the top, remember?”

“You have a lot more competition now,” Wei murmured, bending down to remove the hairsbreadth of height between them. “And I’ve got a lot less.” Impossibly, there was still a small gap. Then Wei let out a breath, and they were touching: an impersonal touch, chestplate to chestplate, but it was enough. Eriana reached for her as if she were still lost underwater; Wei caught her hand mid-caress, brought the hybrid tangle of fingers to her lips. The first kiss she planted on Eriana’s knuckles ( _sort of like licking my own armour_ , she had said once, and, upon noting Eriana’s unimpressed look, _if licking my own armour were a huge turn-on, that is_ ) was light, almost tentative. The second was less so. Wei had dedicated herself to learning how to kiss an Exo, as serious and thorough as any Warlock researching a pet topic. An objective critique of the results, Eriana had long since concluded, would not be worth attempting. Subjective assessment was much easier.

“Come here,” she said, arrested by a flash of impatience, “come on, please.” When all she got in return was a sly look, Eriana brushed her finger across the nape of Wei’s neck. The reaction was immediate – a twitch, then an outright shudder when she repeated the action with both index and middle fingers. Muttering threats both colourful and plausible, Wei made as if to pull back. Eriana followed, face brilliant with laughter, and got what she had been angling for; a hand under her chin and another kiss pressed against the smooth, inflexible skin of her upper lip. When had she started to appreciate kissing for its own sake? At first, she had delighted in the pleasure it gave Wei. Somewhere along the line, vicarious enjoyment had become personal desire.

“I should have,” she began, and then paused. “I should tell everyone about that fatal weakness of yours. It’s a real crime how few people ever found out.”

“In the mood for another fight?” Wei let her go, settled into a well-worn combat stance. “I can give you one.”

Eriana blinked another laugh at her. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“When have I ever?” Wei said, and lunged. Eriana, predicting her trajectory, had already leapt backward and sideways. Foam splashed over the tops of her boots as she fled. The open sea spread out before her, white as a pond full of lilies; she kicked up a fountain of spray for the fun of it and heard Wei yell an imprecation from behind. She reached for the sky and the light filtering through it, ready to turn their playful chase into a genuine battle – and found emptiness instead. No tether. Even underground, hemmed in by wet rock and damp soil and bad air, there was always a tether. Spinning on her heel, she flung her palms out in a gesture that might have been interpreted as aggressive. Wei understood, came skidding to a halt in under two seconds. The planes of her face shifted, excitement fading into worry.

“Where’s the sun?” Eriana said. Tension made her words snap and spit. Even to herself, she sounded like a radio on the fritz.

A shrug. “Where are the clouds?”

No kind of answer, that, and yet Eriana was almost satisfied. Dropping her hands, she beckoned Wei closer with a flash of blue. They were further apart than she had thought. Wei came to her fast, skating across the water with a level of agility no-one who knew her by reputation alone would have thought possible. Eriana had envied her the technique, once. She remembered early mornings and late nights spent struggling to master it, and she remembered the day she’d given in and agreed to take lessons. She dug her heels deep into wet sand, ready to catch Wei once she arrived – but Wei caught her instead, tugging her upward until her boots were flat against the surface. They held the pose for a few seconds, united in laughter, before Eriana let them sink. When their feet touched the seabed, Wei made as if to dip her; mock dance move or earnest attempt at a dunking, Eriana didn’t know. A brief struggle ensued, stalled out, came to a stalemate. Throughout it all, her eyes did not leave Wei’s. The blazing arch wheeled over their heads, dull by comparison.

“If all the stars in the galaxy bled together,” she said, “and formed a sort of soup, thin and hot – that sky is what it would look like.”

“Star soup,” Wei said, and laughed a laugh that made Eriana’s joints seize up. “Fuck. This is why I miss you.”

The note of softness in her voice was frightening. Eriana curled a hand around her bicep, drew her forward until she swore and gave way with another snort of laughter. “Well, stop. I’m right here.” Their foreheads touched. Wei leaned into it first, brushing the tips of their noses together. That piece of sensory input was more important than anything else: it took precedence over the unnatural whiteness of the sea, the brilliance of the sky, the current lapping at her ankles.

Took precedence, but did not quite eclipse. It had been tugging at her knees before.

Doesn’t matter, she told herself. Shut it out. Think of the light on the water and her breath on your face. Words, not commands. Helpless as a marionette, she began to turn her head in the direction of the tide.

“Don’t.” Wei touched the side of her face in a too-gentle gesture of reassurance. “Don’t look that way.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Eriana said, with reflexive contrariness. When no response seemed forthcoming, she let curiosity take over. The horizon she had run toward was flat and featureless, pale sky plummeting into pale sea. This one was blotted out by a wall. Details shimmered and shifted as she tried to bring them into focus, but one remained constant: its colour, a thousand different hues drawn from the same basic palette. That vicious gradient tore memories out of her, frame by frame.

Eriana made a noise, small and distorted. Even now. Even now, the green fire.

“It’s a wave,” Wei said. “Destructive potential, in flux. You can still diffuse it, and in so doing defuse the threat.” Her voice was matter-of-fact, as if the issue at stake were an incoming fall of drizzle. “I could show you a hundred different timestreams, crisscrossing and meandering and looping back on themselves, and only in a few of them would it sweep us all under.”

Eriana tore her eyes away from the overbearing greenness, took a few sloshing steps backward. Against instinct, she made herself look at the figure in front of her through vision undistorted by joy or relief. It was as hollow as the sky. “You aren’t her.”

“I’m everything she was to you.” There was compassion in the mockery’s face. “Everything, and a bit more.”

“If you keep on looking at me like that -” Eriana began, and faltered. _I'll make you regret it_ , she had meant to add, but the sentence came out shaped like a plea. Wei’s sharp gaze; Wei’s cropped hair; even the knotty little scar above her lip - all of it was right there. All of it, bar Wei’s thinking self.

“I have a bad request,” Wei said. “I’m serious. You’ll hate it.”

“I’m sure,” Eriana said, but thought _yes, tell me, whatever you like_. It would show in her face. Some patterns were beyond her control.

“Replay the vision.” Wei ducked her head, apologetic. Breaking character, Eriana thought; she could count the number of times she’d seen that hangdog expression on the fingers of one hand. “Don’t do what you always do. Don’t change the outcome. Just watch me die.”

“What,” Eriana said, tamping down on a scream, “will I find there?”

“Data,” Wei said. When Eriana’s fingers started to curl into a fist, she held up a hand. “I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know. You and Eris have hit a dead end. This may lead to a breakthrough.”

“May?” Eriana made a gesture, quick and furious. _Eris_ was a name she could still protect; she did not want to hear it in this dream-world, squeezed through this dream-thing’s teeth. “I save her every day. I save all of them. Am I supposed to give that up for a hunch?”

Wei said nothing, which proved to be a wise move. It gave Eriana time to take in the totality of her, the weight of her presence. _This is a dream_ , she thought, _or a haunting, or a systems hack. I’m somewhere else, and so is she – she isn’t -_ But the evidence was not compelling enough to make her look away.

Despising herself, she said, “Is there a timeline where I see you again?”

“One or two.” They were up to their necks in seawater now, and it showed no sign of receding. Wei tilted her head back to shout the next few words. “You wouldn’t like them as much as you think.”

A prelude to the great wave buffeted Eriana where she stood. It left strands of blue light behind, clinging to her torso like seaweed. She plucked at one, hoping to unpick it piece by piece, but could not find an end. Some unbearably complex pattern stirred within the strings, as alien and vast as the sea itself. Not a sea, she thought; or not a sea of water. No such mundane body could yield up this sort of debris. Better words eluded her every time she tried to clutch at them.

The same breaker had caught Wei, even standing a little further back as she was. A whole clump of the wireweeds sat atop her head, and her expression was so disgruntled that Eriana had to fight to keep her face static. It was the same look she used to wear whenever one of the handlers lectured them about Crucible etiquette and listening to the buzzer. Her hand clasped Eriana’s with just the right amount of pressure, and her palm bore a perfect set of calluses. Eriana did not ask where the distance separating them had gone, or wonder how Wei’s ungloved hand had found hers. Questions were what had got her into this predicament in the first place.

There was a consistency to the tidal roar now. All the possibilities contained within it had narrowed down to a single point. It was so near and so immense that Eriana had to deconstruct it in order to do any processing at all: here a splash of chartreuse, there a blaze of teal. Before the green fire, she would have thought it impossible to stand shoulder to shoulder with Wei and still feel dwarfed by a foe. The sky was splitting open and the sand was ready to become a killing field and the wave was a tower toppling to crush them. She felt her mind latch onto the tower image, pleased at its familiarity. Jade and marble, some stray process insisted; see, jade and marble, elegant even in the midst of collapse. Look at the crenellations, elaborate and foamy. There were faces at the windows, portraits on the walls, a crowned figure leaning over the balustrade.

The hand in hers felt cool and dry. She clutched it tighter. “We should run.”

“We never run!” Wei cried, grinning a grin made lopsided by scar tissue.

“No,” Eriana said, beneath the wave’s gathering thunder. “But we should.”

She stood alone on a million-mile stretch of sand, fingers laced through empty air. Her world was a confusion of sound and certainty. Instinct drove her to reach up, clawing her way heavenward through layer after layer of ocean. There was a tether. Faint and dim, guttering already, but there; it must have fallen into the sky fissure, or maybe it had come to find her at last. Perhaps, she thought, it had already taken Wei home. It armoured her in heat; she felt her skin start to drip, the coolant in her veins begin to boil. The waters would close over her head, draw her down and down. Even at the bottom, she must not go out.

To drown deep and burn bright. Eriana, molten, stood against the wave and spoke a soundless word: _how?_

The library’s still quiet fell back into her consciousness, as sudden as a pane of glass shattering.


	2. The Ashes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I will take a piece of its mind, and ask again.
> 
> Tell me how to kill Crota.
> 
>  -Ghost Fragment: Warlock 2

The silence was not absolute. Several alcoves away, a reader clattered to the floor; whoever it belonged to made no attempt to modulate their cursing. Three people were debating the ethics of energy transfer behind the nearest set of stacks. A lone Titan – wearing full battledress, from the sound of it – keyed the next study along open, hesitated on the threshold, and went in. None of those sounds were relevant. On the other side of her own room, someone familiar slept and breathed. She allowed herself half a second’s worth of hope before acknowledging that the rhythm was too slow to be human.

“Eriana!”

A thin cry cut through the quiet. “Hush,” she said, and then realised the voice had not spoken aloud. She held out her hands just in time to receive the small, frantic body that flew into them. “There, little sun. There you are.”

“Even in the Crypt.” Ghost trembled like a moth, resting in the centre of her palm. “Even in the Crypt, I can always find you. But you were gone from me, and I felt your Light begin to ebb.”

“I wasn’t gone,” Eriana said, soft. “It was a dream, a seeing – you know those are an occupational hazard. I’ll never be gone from you, even if I’m out of reach.”

“Never, Eriana,” Ghost said, turning the word into a singsong chant. “Never, never, never.”

“Hush,” Eriana soothed once more. “No, never.” There was a sound from across the study, and she turned her head.

“Eris is asleep,” Ghost said, following her thought. “Both of them are. It’s not the restful kind.”

“Better than none at all,” Eriana said, watching Eris shudder. “They were burning Light.” Nobody had ever accused her of stealthiness, but she was more than capable of crossing a tiled floor with minimal noise. The ratty old cloak Eris used as a blanket had come adrift, trailing off one shoulder to puddle at her feet. With great care, Eriana stooped to pick up the hem and began to resettle it, letting some of her own heat seep into the fabric as she did so. Once, she might have been able to touch a hand to the back of Eris’ head and help her on her way to pleasanter dreams. Not any more.

Even so, she could still stand vigil. Some fringe ascetics preached perpetual insomnia as the way to unlock a Guardian’s full potential. She remembered a lecture given by one such stern example, and a Wen Jie disciple whispering in her friend’s ear: _I have this dream about sticky little cakes that turn sweet when you bite into them, and if I don’t even get to taste those in my sleep any more, what did it bring me back for?_ There had been a time when she envied her organic comrades the ability to close their eyes and not know what they were about to see. After the Moon, the City’s dreams had gone sour; she had not felt that flicker of jealousy in a while. At least her nightmares were predictable.

“Eriana?” Ghost’s tone was tentative. “Where were you?”

Stalling for time, she thought: I’ve been stalling for time. She drew herself up, braced a hand against the desk. “With Wei.”

It was like throwing a stone into a still pond. Ghost flinched on impact, came apart. Eriana found herself awash in sensation: the warmth of Ghost’s concern, the cool undertones of her disbelief. “No!” she said, sharp, and Ghost gave an anxious little tug on the link between them. “She found me in the place I always go, and took me – I don’t know. Elsewhere. It wasn’t her, but she said some things. Things I think we should take into account.”

“You aren’t making sense.” Each of the stranded triangles began to quiver in turn. “You had a real dream?”

“’Real dream’ is a bit of an oxymoron,” Eriana said, and held up her hands at Ghost’s flare of irritation. “Fine. I told you before. It was uncanny, I think.”

‘”Visions are just useful nightmares,’” Ghost quoted. “From – “

“Frost-1. I wish I could forget. There’s a reason we stopped making the newborns read that damn text.” With a start, Eriana realised she was smiling. She felt her face go dark. “I’d be surprised if old Frost ever had a genuine vision in his life, but maybe he wasn’t all wrong.”

“So.” A growing sense of trepidation. “What’s the use of this one?”

“She suggested a new avenue of enquiry.” Wei’s words echoed in Eriana’s head. For a moment, she found herself robbed of speech. “The other sight. The one it forced on us.”

“I won’t!” Genuine fury. Eriana made a conciliatory gesture toward Ghost, who had fled to hover just beyond her grasp. “I won’t take you back there. I won’t go.”

“My first spark,” Eriana said, “we’ve been going back there since the day it happened.” Ghost’s distress was almost more than she could bear. It twined around her own, amplifying thoughts she had fought hard to suppress. “You helped me lie, and I don’t need to tell you how grateful I am. Just this once, let it play out to the end. Keep me honest.”

“Why?” Plaintive, like a mortal child. “Why can’t someone else do it? Someone who didn’t love them?”

That gave Eriana pause. Once, she would have scorned that word. _Love_ , she would have said, did not touch upon how it felt to have Wei at her back in the field and know every single movement she was about to make before she made it. _Love_ did not cover the sensation of synchronising one’s Light with another’s to pull her back from death. _Love_ did not even hint at what it meant to draw on Wei at the same time as Wei drew on her; to know that, no matter who fell, both of them would emerge stronger and more resilient for it. City merchants whispered _love_ into each other’s hair at night and fell asleep, content to leave it at that. What they had demanded more.

But Eriana was weaker now, diminished from what she had been before Mare Imbrium, and she thought the word _love_ might be good enough.

“I don’t want to.” Unhappy acquiescence, not refusal. Ghost drifted downward, settling back into Eriana’s hands.

“I know.” Eriana ran a finger over one of the points, gentling herself. “Nor do I. But she would, if it were us. She wouldn’t pretend.”

“If you can’t bear it,” Ghost said, “or if _I_ – I will call a halt.” The words were spoken like a threat. “I mean it.”

“All right.” Keeping an eye on Eris’ still form, Eriana edged away from the desk. The room’s floor was a mosaic representation of the Traveller’s arrival. Once she reached the centre, she sat down cross-legged on top of the worn white circle marking it out.

“Now,” she said. Even through her gauntlet, she could feel how chipped the tiles were. One of the sections underneath her had a large chunk missing. She moved her hand a little, trying to gauge the extent of the damage, and her glove came away pale with moondust. A dull, marshy green illuminated everything. If she turned her head a little to the left, she would see Roshan lying prone over the Thrall that had managed to tear his Ghost from him. She would see bright splinters glinting in his fist, and then she would be forced to recall his deep belly-laugh when she had threatened to set his hair on fire for cheating at cards. She could not watch a confident dealer shuffle without coming back to those brilliant shards trapped between Roshan’s still fingers.

But there was nothing of use to be found there, and so she did not have to look. _Coward_ , she thought, and caught a flash of ire from Ghost; the insult had been directed at both of them. Roshan's fate mattered as much as anyone’s, as much as the deaths of those closest to her. Ghost had brought them here in order to prolong the inevitable, and she could not even do him the honour of bearing witness. _Wrong vision. Show me the last one_.

The fragment began to stir, digging into her thoughts like a stray piece of shrapnel. She had caught its attention. Ghost’s anger turned to fear, and then they were standing in the middle of the mare. The few bloodstains she could see were dark, centuries old. The Light was fresh. Every grain and particle it came into contact with developed a radiance of its own; the corpses all around her were haloed in luminescent blue, burning bright even as the energy within them guttered.

“Oh, Eriana,” Ghost said. Her fear was gone. A terrible grief swept in to replace it. “They’re here.”

The fragment laughed.

For a second, the pain of it was blinding. Then her senses cleared. The field had come alive with Guardians, forming up around the dead. Anat was there, unslinging the full-auto scout Eriana had cursed a thousand times in the Crucible. Sindri had her flank; tiny silver droplets formed a starburst across his chestplate, but he stood fast. There were more: too many names and histories to count. Eriana’s eyes slid guiltily over the faces of her friends, searching. Not needing to search, because she knew where Wei would be.

And there she was. Some civilian aide had explained _vertigo_ to Eriana once – _it’s the feeling I get when I look down from the top of the Tower and try to focus on things I can’t really see_ – and she thought that glimpse might be the closest she would ever come to experiencing it herself. The dream should have made it easier... but this Wei was not an imagined proxy, slipping in and out of character. She was wholly herself: gesturing her Defenders into position, ordering her Gunslingers to form up behind them, waving a fractious Voidwalker back into line. Her voice was thin, as if filtered through a bad connection, but Eriana could recite the script off by heart.

On the lip of the crater, the Hive waited. It had made no sense to Eriana the first time around, why they did not just attack while the Guardians struggled to regroup. She remembered thinking so, wild and helpless; aware, even then, that her prisoner would never have shown her the battle if it thought its own spawn were about to lose.  


_Never_ , the fragment agreed, in a voice beyond words. Then, with a bubbling sort of gladness: _Home_.

Eriana’s hands flew to her head. She wanted to pry the plating loose and pluck out the thing that had taken up residence inside - but she had come here to watch, and this was a vision, and it would do no good anyway. Instead, she kept her eyes on the line. Exhausted, but defiant; that was how she had seen them. Having survived the Lake intact, it was hard not to compare.

Then the first chasm opened up.

Half the front line were gone, swallowed up in an instant. Anat threw her arms out as she fell, a reflexive attempt at warding; Eriana counted eight, ten, twelve seconds before the bubble she left behind burst. Others remained intact, for all the good they did their creators. She saw a Hunter – Carme, by the sigil on her cloak – flare gold and fire three blind, desperate shots down into the earth. Should have aimed at the ones you could see, Eriana thought, but you’re a panicker, Carme. No faith in your own skill. I remember when you were on my team and Teo-10 sniped you four times in a row because you kept letting his friends herd you into the same godforsaken lane and I told you you’d be more use as a pile of mouldering bones I could throw at him. That can’t have been the last thing I said to you. It was forever ago, before me and Wei. Teo gave his last at Delphi and I learned some patience from my students. Did I ever apologise? No, not a chance – but we talked afterward, so you forgave me. You must have forgiven me. What did we talk about? I can’t think what we talked about.

“Eriana.” Ghost’s voice grounded her. “Let’s go. Please. I want to go.”

Her eyes sought Wei. There she was again, balanced on the edge of another crevasse. When the ground beneath her began to tremble, she braced her foot against a spur of rock and held steady. Eriana knew that shoulders-back-head-up stance. She had teased Wei about her “I’m going to clutch this” pose countless times. It inspired total confidence if you were on her side and abject terror if not.

The earth started to settle. It was a cue.

As if they had been waiting on ceremony, the Hive parted. Much older entities moved among them now, clad in grey rags and yellow-brown bone. Eriana could put a name to every single one of them. Slowly, she became aware that he was there: the wave himself. He was a disaster among disasters, almost incidental. The fragment was crooning a soft, repulsive song at the back of her mind: his name, His Name, over and over. _Crota, Crota, CROTA_ , Eriana sang back, doing her best to make it sound ridiculous. _Crota’s_ presence confused the eye. He grew large enough to swallow the stars in one instant and shrank down to the level of his own knightly guard in the next. Some sort of order must have been given, because his followers began to spill over the edge in an undifferentiated mass of green. Their advance was lazy, incautious. They had no reason to fear the Guardian remnant: out of synth, bleeding Light, pinched on all sides.

Wei swept the survivors rallying to her with a glance. She raised her hand and pointed at him.

And, like an especially terrifying festival mirror distortion, he pointed back.

She flew. There was no better way to describe it; her feet skimmed the ground perhaps once every six leaps. Guardians fanned out in her wake like the tail of a comet. Eriana, knowing her own version of the technique would not have sufficed, nonetheless thought: _If we had been at her side_ –

 _We would have died at her side_ , Ghost said, harsh. A low sound of mockery came from the fragment.

The Hive ranks slowed. Wei did not. She struck the front line like a meteor, shredding it to pieces. Knights, reeling, attempted to recover and got the brunt of her shield in their faces; Acolytes tried to swarm her and were driven back by the storm sparking around her knuckles. Eriana took a vicious pleasure in the fragment’s alien grief. Other Guardians closed the gap. Most were unarmed, long since having burnt through their ammo reserves, but Wei’s example seemed to serve as an inspiration. Sindri sidestepped a fleeing Knight’s frantic swing and drove his fist into its armoured abdomen. Carme, wreathed in flame, raised an empty pistol and fired at Crota himself where he stood on the edge of the crater. This time, she did not miss.

If he had moved, even at an impossible speed, Eriana would have been able to track and process it. He did not move. He simply was on the field in front of Carme. The sky shivered. Her flames died. There was a blade in his hand.

A quick death, Eriana thought, numb. A good death, for one so afraid of dying. Crota’s first kill had brought the battle to a halt, Guardians and Hive alike freezing where they stood. Even Wei hesitated. There was something in his hand, something bright and alive. He opened his fingers to show it off, cradling it as Carme herself might have done. Then he let it fall, down to where the Thralls scrabbled for leftovers at his feet.

Eriana did not recall ever having heard Wei scream like that before. There was as much horror in it as outrage. She had a clear path to Crota, uncontested by any Hive honour guard. A single Knight, armour bearing the marks of age, made as if to block her as she ran. Leading with her left shoulder, she slammed into it at full tilt. The Knight crumpled, dropping its weapon. Ghost said _We can still change this – you don’t have to watch_ – and Eriana said _I can’t_ -

_My team and I get there before you do. You tease me, say you’ll never forgive us. When you make that mad dash right down the middle, I’m there to cover you. I ping Ghost and she puts the rocket launcher in my hands, the one from Twilight Gap. Twinned with yours, remember? Most of the others treated theirs like precious relics, but we ran riot in the Crucible and told them it was just what our dead would have wanted. He turns to face me – too late, because I’m already locked on. I fire, and all the rounds blow up in his face like a swarm of angry bees. It’s almost funny, the way he staggers. He’s roaring, not even focused on you any more, and you took out most of his guard in your sprint across the field. You’re holding the sword like it’s an extension of your hand, and you leap – you swing – you swing again –_

The vision reset itself before she could offer Ghost a rebuke. She blinked a pattern of regret instead. Look, she told herself, ruthless. Look, and keep looking.

Wei stooped to retrieve the sword. When her fingers closed around the hilt, it let out a shriek. She recoiled, and then Crota was upon her.

His first blow broke across her shield. She staggered, catching herself on the lip. Lightning arced across the surface of her armour, singing all the way to her fists, and she struck back. There it was, all the remembered glory of her Light shining in Eriana’s head. She would finish this. She had to.

Then the blade that was sharp enough to sever Guardian from Ghost came humming down a second time.

Wei did not cry out. The sound she made was so soft that it might have gone unheard, had the fragment not wanted Eriana to hear it. After five long seconds, she began to breathe again: one ragged breath after another, as if she were drowning on bone-dry rock. Half of Eriana’s processes were still tangled up in hope and the other half were screaming as if some vital part of her had been torn away. She was on her knees in the grit. From that vantage point, she watched panic spread through the scattered Guardian ranks. Sindri let out a shout of disbelief, and the Knight he had been engaging ran him through in perfect mimicry of its master. Somewhere far away from the fragment’s joy and Ghost’s anguish, she took notes. _The notches on the blade killing my friend and the notches on the blade killing my lover are identical. They are the same. What drove her to pick it up, and why couldn’t she hold on to it?_ There were stains on the great sword, dark and bright. The blood was immaterial. But the Light –

 _Pain beyond even your imagining_ , said the fragment, _but the cold was worse. She tried to focus on the Earth rising beyond His head, until she couldn’t._ A lie, Eriana thought, dispassionate. Crota was bent low over Wei, for all the world as if he had a secret to share. His form would have blotted out the earthrise, the starshine, the expanse of night. Claws skittered across the surface of her mind, then sunk deeper. _Wei Ning had faith in you – believed you would be there in time to help the others, if not her. What would she have thought if she knew what you were doing instead?_

 _NO_ , Ghost said. Just one syllable, but it was enough. The dust became a set of cracked white tiles. For some reason, they repelled her. She leapt to her feet and made a grab for her sidearm, not knowing what she would do once she had it. Ghost was pleading with her in words that made no sense. Giving up on the gun, she cast about for a solid object to throw. Her hand snatched up the reader she had set down a few hours ago.

“Eris is here!” Ghost cried. “She’s asleep!”

Eriana stopped. The reader was heavy in her hand. She weighed it, felt the heft and balance. Then, with the same delicacy she would have used in handling a fragile artifact, she returned it to its former position.

“There,” Ghost said, with justifiable bitterness. “Is that all, or do we have to see it through to the very end?”

“No.” The hand that had seized the reader was now clutching the desk. Without it, she would have sunk back to the floor. There was no strength left in her, no resistance. “You saw. The proper use of weapons. She always understood – but I don’t. Not yet. Please, Ghost…”

“Oh,” Ghost whispered – and just like that, she was forgiven. Eriana felt a twinge of guilt. Ghost alighted on her shoulder, sending little ripples along their connection. “What are we going to do? What are you going to do?”

They might have stayed like that forever. Part of her wished they could. Then another voice, thick with sleep, spoke her name.

She raised her head. For an endless moment, all she saw was a pair of eyes blazing like twin fires in the dark.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I wish you’d woken me earlier,” Eris said, and grimaced a little. “That is, I – it was a bad night. Not your fault.”

 _Isn’t it?_ Eriana wanted to say. She was the one keeping Eris cooped up in here, away from her friends and Sai and the sun. She was the one whose desperation had driven them into the archives to research and annotate the City’s worst nightmares. If not for her, Mare Imbrium might have become to Eris what the Lake was to both of them: a memory held at arm’s length, waiting for the right moment. Bearable.

In lieu of a response, she crossed over to Eris’ side and found the second stool hidden underneath the desk. It went unused most of the time, but she felt a sudden urge to sit; wanted to look Eris in the eye. When she did, she saw a mix of relief and uncertainty.

“So you did suspend.” Relief won out. “Good.”

“Good for me?” Eriana flashed her a wry grin. “Huh. I could have sworn you were the one verging on collapse.”

 _“I_ am tireless,” Eris said. An answering smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. The bioluminescent patterns on her face shifted like smoke, then shifted again as a frown crept in. “Are you all right?”

“No,” Eriana said, and laughed out loud at Eris’ expression. The laugh sounded more like a shriek, so she silenced it. “Never mind. We may have a good reason to be excited.”

Wary. “Why should we be excited?”

“We had an epiphany.”

 _Working with Eriana requires some forbearance_ , an instructor of hers had noted several lifetimes ago. Eris was clearly exercising a measure of that forbearance now. “Would we like to share it?”

“We will.” It was hard to suppress another awful laugh at the look Eris gave her, but she managed. “I’m not holding back on you. I just don’t know… Eris, I think my frame of mind might be a little skewed right now.” Pahanin, had he been there, would not have hesitated to make a snappy remark. Eris let the opportunity lie. “I want a second opinion.”

“A second Warlock opinion,” Eris said. There was the snappy remark. She waved off Eriana’s protests and fixed her with a look that stopped just short of becoming a glare. “Which means you know where to go next.”

“I know where you think I should go next.” There was a note of petulance in Eriana’s voice. She couldn’t help it, even moreso because she knew Eris had the right idea. “How am I supposed to approach her?”

“Why don’t you tell me? There might be a rift between you now –“

“I set light to her reading chair,” Eriana said. Eris did not quite succeed in concealing a wince. “And I strewed her books around, and left a dent in her table, and told her she was to blame. That if she’d done her job properly…” Her fingers went to the bond on her arm, tugging at it. Had she pinned it a touch higher than usual the day before?

On what seemed to be pure impulse, Eris reached out and took Eriana’s gloved hands in her bare ones. The gesture was startling, uncharacteristic. Aware as she was that non-Warlocks did not place the same amount of significance on such contact, Eriana still drew back a little in reflex. Eris’ skin was cool, several degrees below human, but she could feel it: a faint crackle of electricity trapped beneath the flesh. It was not, Eriana thought, at all like holding Wei’s hand. Holding Wei’s hand, she had felt she might transform into a lightning bolt herself if she hung on long enough. But the echo was there, and she remembered.

“And you never offered so much as a single word in apology.” The gentleness of Eris’ tone belied her firm grip. “I spoke to her.”

“You talk to Ikora?” The bond was riding far too high. “About me?”

“Once. We don’t plan on making a habit of it.” Releasing Eriana’s hands, Eris sat back. “I can’t promise it will be a comfortable audience, but she won’t turn you away.”

Thinking about what they might have said to each other made Eriana want to get up and pace. Anger was as tempting a response as ever. _Who else have you been discussing me with?_ she heard herself snap, or _My disputes are none of your business_.

“Oh, Eris Morn,” she said, instead. “What would I do without you?”

“Stew in your own foolish pride, no doubt,” Eris said, but there was a smile behind the words. “Go and see her. I’ll be here when you’re finished.”


	3. The Bridge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And you fight, with more than your Light... you use your pain.
> 
> You loved her. How couldn't you?
> 
> -Osiris: Vision 81

Summer was here.

The realisation hit Eriana all at once, sitting there at Ikora’s table with her hands folded in her lap. As high up as they were, she almost felt she could reach through the window panel and touch the white-capped clouds gathering outside. How had a whole season passed her by? The last days of Chaitra were clear in her mind; they’d brought a gloomy, sullen sort of heat with them, and several pessimistic forecasters had predicted thunder on New Year’s Eve. She remembered insisting that Eris take some time off to celebrate. “I don’t like parties,” Eris had said, stubborn, and Eriana had nodded her agreement. After the new year, when high spring began in earnest – that was where her sense of time started to slip. She could retrieve every one of those lost hours, but there was no need. They were blanks, part of the same flat, undifferentiated greyness that had dogged her ever since she exchanged fieldwork for research.

Often, drifting back and forth between the library and her own rooms, she had gone past windows misty with rain. Monsoon weather, but it had not even registered with her. Having no real reason to go outside, she’d lost track of what was happening beyond the bounds of internal climate control. When she was younger, spending her life cooped up indoors would have been unthinkable. Each year, she’d hoped against hope that the heaviest clouds would pass them over, and each year, she’d glowered at the sky as her hopes were dashed. She was always among the first into the courtyard after the sun came out, turning her face up to it as if starved of light.

(“Like a flower,” Wei said, with affectionate mockery. “Dare you to go ahead and call me _delicate,”_ Eriana retorted, giving her a shove.)

She shook her head. The movement must have caught Ikora’s attention, because she set the teaglass she was holding on the counter and turned around. For five long turns of the pump, they regarded each other. Then Ikora cleared her throat – a polite little sound, almost inaudible - and said the first words she had spoken since ushering Eriana in. “Are you all right?”

Eriana flashed her a smile, bright and brittle. “People keep asking me that.”

“Do they?” Ikora turned back to the tea service. “You don’t see much of anyone besides Eris Morn, these days.”

There was a retort sparking in Eriana’s throat, but she smothered it. Watching Ikora handle the strainer, she couldn’t help but imagine Wei’s reaction to the wait. She had had no patience for the City’s near-reverential attitude towards tea. Instead of straining it, she would pour hot water over the top and throw the whole soggy mess back like a shot, relishing the horrified glances she got from nearby citizens. Downing a cup with the leaves still in it was not quite a criminal offence, but it veered close enough to wastefulness to make them uneasy.

There had been forty-nine seconds between those last two thoughts of Wei. Not her best record. Far from her worst attempt.

A flash of bronze from near the floor caught her eye. Ikora's apartment bore the telltale signs of a hurried tidying. Real paper books lined the walls like flotsam. The glint had come from an old brass astrolabe, catching sunlight where it lay propped against one of the cabinets. Eriana's eyes chased a series of interlocking spirals across the surface of the dial. She thought: it's like that time I got back from a Shores escort run and she'd thrown a party for Agema and they'd just piled all my books up in the corners. Someone had spilt beer over the last physical copy of Farajova's _General Temporal Theory_ in existence. Half the guests fled at the sight of me. A cohort of elite Titans, fleeing at the sight of me! Then she marched right off to Master Guinto-5 in the middle of the night and took the blame herself. I was still cool towards her for a week or so, mind you. The new quarters, the ones they gave me after – they're neat, but not clean. I never let anything get so dusty before.

She curled her fingers up tight, digging them into the seams that ran across her palms. _Stop._ Whether the command came from herself or Ghost, she didn't know.

A drop of liquid splashed onto the counter as Ikora set the glasses out. Eriana had spent half her life envying the level of grace those hands possessed, as evident when pouring tea as it was when tearing reality apart in the field. For Ikora, that one lost droplet was the equivalent of spilling a whole cup. Ghost fluttered a little, uneasy.

When Ikora turned back to the table, she was a model of composure. She put an empty glass before Eriana, then set her own full one down on the other side. Protocol did not permit hosts to exclude guests from serving ceremonies, but it also had no room for the waste involved in giving food or drink to someone who would never be able to make use of it. This was an elegant solution. A stranger might have been fooled, but Eriana saw the look on Ikora's face for what it was: practiced patience covering impatience. Still, she knew Ikora would not be the first to speak.

“Nice of you to cut it short.” She had intended the words to be light, conciliatory. They were anything but.

“I was tempted to put you through a formal coffee service.” Ikora ran a finger round the rim of her teaglass, drawing some heat off. “Selecting the beans, buffing the strainer, all of it. But that would have been cruel.”

“Yes,” Eriana said, not even trying to continue the back-and-forth. She'd only embarrass herself in the attempt. Early on, she'd felt like a witless, stumbling newborn in Ikora's presence. Centuries of missions together and decades of Crucible challenges had wiped that sense of self-consciousness away, but it had returned with a vengeance after the last Vanguard turnover. Ikora was no longer just Ikora, her rival and sometime friend. She was Commander Rey now, one-third of a triumvirate.

And they hadn't parted on good terms last time. There was an understatement.

“Have you stopped by to see Hari yet?”

Whatever she'd been expecting to hear, it wasn't that. “No.”

“You should. He’s doing better.”

“Doing better.” Her face was a lightshow. She could feel it: flickers of fury chasing each other across her cheeks, a pale knot forming in her throat. “What does that mean? He’s forgotten what it felt like to lie there and watch while some demon turned the greater part of his soul into iron filings?”

“ _Better_ means he’s asking for you. Your name was one of the first words he said.” Underneath the table, Eriana found a stray thread hanging from the hem of her coat. Had Ikora noticed it when she came in? “I think he believes you’re ashamed of him, that his current state repels you. Is he wrong?”

“Yes!” It was a reflexive response. Ghost's grief and the pressure of her own emotions kept her from saying more, but she would have done: _the shame is ours, nobody else's_. They hadn't even reached the battlefield in time to challenge the Knight that had cut his Ghost away. She could not imagine what it must feel like to go on existing afterward. A miserable half-life, and the Guardian at the centre of it no more than a shadow.

 _Never,_ her own Ghost said, and a shudder ran through both of them. _Oh, Eriana. Never that._

“He’s made extraordinary progress,” Ikora said, “and even if he hadn’t, he would still have a place in the Tower. He is one of us, with or without a bond.”

She looped the thread around a finger, began to tug. “I didn’t come here to discuss my last living student.”

“What did you come here to discuss?”

A petty victory. She knew Ikora had handed it to her. “That depends. How much did Eris tell you?”

“Just a little,” Ikora said. The accusatory note in Eriana's voice did not seem to bother her at all. “She said you had a vision.”

“Mare Imbrium.” Her voice was even, unclouded by static. “The end. I've seen it before, but only – only once, unaltered. Their swords. Wei -” No; she was skipping too far ahead. Pause. Recalibrate. Try a different approach. “When she took out one of his guards, she tried to pick its weapon up. The blade screamed, as if it were fighting her. She couldn't hold on to it.” If she pulled much harder, the entire hem would start to unravel. “Wrong place, wrong time. But that doesn't mean there isn't a right one.”

“A sword is the key.”

“I think so.” The thread snapped. Eriana brought her hands back up to table level. “She thought so. She understood weapons better than anyone.”

“You realise,” Ikora said, “that this isn't a new insight.” Implicit in that: _you'd know if you were keeping up with recent research -_ or maybe she was imagining the slight. “We’ve been trying to replicate the material ever since Burning Lake. Shaxx came very close to developing a prototype...”

“Don’t.” Eriana leaned forward, hands tightening on the table's edge. A little more force, and she would leave her own fingerprints impressed upon the metal. “Don’t tell me I want her to have died for a reason.”

“Get your hands off my table.” Ikora’s tone was mild. “Do that, and then tell me you’re wrong – yes, you. I wasn’t the one who brought it up.”

“I know it’s an unfounded hypothesis –“

“It’s a guess.” Sharp, then gentle: “Have you considered the possibility that she might have been wrong?”

Eriana’s face must have said it all. She watched Ikora struggle to bite back a sigh.

“Suppose I take this to the Consensus?” It sounded like a genuine question. “What should I say? We can’t feed your unfounded hypothesis to the City and its satellites. We can’t tell them this will keep their children safe. More than a few of them believe just researching the Hive will bring disaster down on our heads, or pretend to believe it for their constituents’ sake.” A hint of young Ikora Rey there, in that ironic sideways twist of the mouth. “Our hands are tied. We don’t know enough.”

“No,” Eriana said. A sense of calm settled over her. She had begun planning this part of the conversation months ago, the second she allowed herself to think of it as an option. Without the vision, she might have put it off for several months more. “We don’t.”

Understanding flashed AI-fast across Ikora’s features. Eriana had prepared herself for an array of reactions: the small, secret smile she got had not been among them. “You wouldn't be the first one to suggest that, either.”

“No?”

“No. I was.”

There was no point in trying to conceal her surprise. She let it shine through, so bright she could see herself reflected in the tabletop. “And what did they think?”

A single raised eyebrow.

Amusement sparkled at the corners of Eriana's mouth. She couldn’t help it; the expression was far too illustrative. “That bad?”

“After what I told you?” Ikora steepled her hands and sat forward, as if they were a pair of co-conspirators. “Can you imagine how they reacted to the Warlock Vanguard offering to go and seek out Toland in person?”

Eriana had not expected Ikora to tiptoe around the Shattered's name like some superstitious neophyte, but her casual tone came as a shock. It was as if they were discussing an old friend neither of them had seen in a while. She might, Eriana supposed, be the only one in the Tower who could justify that level of nonchalance.

A small nod from Ikora, as if Eriana's reaction had confirmed some theory. “Did you speak with him often?”

“No.” _You know I didn't._ “Solar affinity or not, he wasn’t the praxic type.”

“As I thought.” Unsteepling her fingers, Ikora leaned back again. “The Consensus doesn’t exile people for being rude, difficult, or eccentric. If they did, we wouldn't have a lot of Guardians left to call upon. Not many Warlocks, at least.”

“Point taken,” Eriana said, and won herself a real laugh. “Believe me when I say this is a last resort. Tower libraries don’t have the resources I need, or else they’re buried too deep to be of any use. I can theorise all I like, but I need someone who’s already done the digging.”

“I don’t doubt he has the knowledge to assist you.” The unsaid needed no elaboration. “You might be a match for him. Is Eris?”

“He puts a foot out of line, I’ll kill him.”

“What good will that do?”

“I’ll kill him a lot.” Too late, she realised her misstep. There was no way Ikora could have known she was planning to take Eris anywhere. She should have hedged, put that argument off. Now she was in for an interrogation, if the look in Ikora's eyes was anything to judge by.

“Why choose Eris to aid in your research?”

“I needed an extra pair of eyes,” Eriana said. Her voice buzzed a little, but it was the truth. She'd assumed pure theory would not be Eris’ forte; “you’re projecting,” Ghost had muttered, which might very well have been true. Instead, she had found Eris to be a better research assistant than most Warlocks. She had a level of focus to rival Eriana's own, and she applied it just as well in the study as she did in the field. Sometimes, Eriana wondered if that trait was what had kept Eris by her side after almost all her surviving friends had fallen away. They shared the same capacity for obsession, a drive that kept them going long past the point where most people would have given up.

“You dug her out from under a pile of Lightless corpses at Burning Lake.”

“And she’s saved my spark half a dozen times since then. What’s your point?”

“My point,” Ikora said, “is that she would follow you into those nightmares you pretend you’re not having if you asked her to. And now you are asking her to.”

“I’m not.” Eriana blinked a fierce negation. “I’ll go alone, if necessary. Just me, off to meet my new best friend.”

“And after you find what you're looking for? What then?”

“Oh, I don't know.” Eriana tilted her head to the side. “Build myself a little house out in the wilds, maybe. Stay there and howl at the Moon with _Toland_.” The name threatened to stick in her throat, but she kept her voice steady.

“You cast a long shadow, Eriana. I refuse to believe you’re unaware of it.” Shutting down her protest with a glare, Ikora went on. “Tower and City alike are full of people who remember that speech you made against lunar interdiction. The stirring one, on the steps of the Burnt Monument? Citizen street-sweepers still quote you when they clean up after the bazaars are done.” It was too easy, sometimes, to forget how far her vision ranged. The Shattered himself might be one of her informants; unlikely, but not impossible. “Eris is the first of five, isn't she? A guaranteed loyal second-in-command. You're not chasing arcane lore, some tidbit that will make our little incursions against the Hive on Earth go better. You're seeking a guide.”

There was still room to deny it. To her own surprise, Eriana found she no longer wanted to. The fury that had seized her last time she had been in Ikora's quarters was back, warm and comfortable as an old blanket. Instead of trusting her actions to it, she let it drive her speech. “What if I am? We're pouring lives and Light into those _little incursions,_ and it's still not enough. At this rate, Crota, Son of Oryx’s troops will swarm over the City while we sit around and debate how best to translate his fucking epithet.” She clenched her fists, stifling a spark. “The Hive don't give a damn about walls. If you'd stood on the line with us at Mare Imbrium, you'd understand that.”

Silence. The shifting currents of Ikora's Light field betrayed her; Eriana felt an ugly sense of satisfaction in having got under her skin at last. When she spoke, she compressed the words flat between her lips. “You never change, do you? Stalwart in the belief that nobody else’s pain is quite as significant as yours.”

“Whose pain?” Leaning back in her chair, Eriana took a long, slow glance around the apartment. She let her eyes linger on the books in their bindings; the new reading chair, arms polished to a shine; the bars of golden light, fainter now, filtering in through those enormous windows. Her gaze returned to Ikora. Whatever follow-up she had meant to deliver died at the base of her throat.

It was not Ikora's posture that shook her: eyes down, shoulders slumped, overfull teaglass cradled in her hands. It was the way her Light had drawn in on itself, collapsing around her like a protective barrier. Goading her no longer felt like it might lead to a win. Ghost projected contempt, or as close as she could get to it: _I love you, but I'm not sure I like you right now._ Maybe, this once, she could swallow her pride and apologise. She was nowhere near speaking the words out loud when Ikora said, “Find him. Listen to what he has to say.” The glass was askew. Some liquid slopped over the side when she put it down. “Then take your five and strike wherever seems best to you. Why not? I made the same decision for thousands.”

This was what she had wanted. Feebly, she said: “I don't have a plan yet.”

“But you have the beginnings of one, which puts you ahead of everyone else here. You were right about that much.”

“So you'll give me your blessing?”

“To search for him, yes. If this comes to light before you return, I'll support you – but let's try to make sure it doesn't.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “When you're ready to start building a team, come back to me. We'll talk.”

“Glad you agreed to negotiate,” Eriana said, speaking on autopilot. It was just like the old days, the pair of them needling each other until somebody broke – except not at all. “I still have some incriminating Crucible footage.” A weak joke, but at least it led Ikora to look up. When she did, Eriana clarified: “Shores.”

“What, the great rotunda pile-up? That’s a matter of public record.” Ikora pursed her lips. “Unfortunately.”

“No. The dragonfly.”

A definite flinch.

“Thought it might come in useful one day.”

“You are subtler and more diabolical than I ever dreamed,” Ikora said, and the skin around her eyes crinkled up a little. Not quite an exchange of apologies, but it would have to do. Official Vanguard backing, Eriana thought, and almost laughed out loud. It was more than she had ever hoped to achieve. She had considered petitioning the Sun Legion, but there was no way back from what she'd said to Ouros before they parted for the last time. _Traitor_ , which might have been forgiven. _If Thalor were still here –_ and that would never be.

 _Like all good Praxics, we excel at burning bridges,_ Ghost said, and Eriana made a sound – small and high-pitched, uncategorisable.

The inside of her head felt slippery. Ikora said something incomprehensible, pushed her chair back, and stood. Her own Ghost hovered in the air next to her shoulder. “I'm all right,” Eriana said, and could have kicked herself. Nobody had asked. The Tower did not pull Guardians from the field outside extraordinary circumstances, but her command fitness was already in question. From now on, she would have to be much more careful about the face she presented.

“You know,” Ikora said, “that you can talk to me, if you need to. I'm your Vanguard.” A pause. “And your friend. It doesn't have to be about work.” Her Ghost blinked encouragement.

A small part of Eriana tried to speak. The rest of her squashed it. What good would it do to put the sights and sounds of Mare Imbrium in Ikora's head as well? Ghost squirmed, preparing to disagree, but she forged on: as far as she was concerned, that would just compound the problem. If Wei had fled the Moon alongside her, could they ever have spoken about it? It was hard to imagine a world in which they kept anything back from each other, and yet... fellow survivors, when she ran into them, were as open and forthcoming as the Wall. Perhaps it was a kind of arrogance, assuming other Guardians did not have stories as bad or worse. All Eriana knew was that she herself had found no comparison.

And then there was the matter of her own actions. The thought of Wei finding out what she had used her Light to do, how she had taken a piece of her enemy home with her like a snapped-off knife fragment remaining in the wound - she shied away, slamming the door on imagined disgust and disappointment. The broken blade in her mind began to shift. She rose from the table with great care, as if that would help ensure it stayed inert.

“I'm all right,” she said again. _Don't sound too insistent, or too defensive._ “Just thinking.”

She could see the exact moment Ikora gave up. Her face smoothed over, became as closed off as Eriana knew her own must be. “I have a source you might find useful. Hold on a moment and let me look.”

 _All those heavy books lying around,_ the fragment said, _and she still trusts you_. _You could split her skull down the middle, then crack her Ghost open and drink their Light._ _There is so very much of it._

Eriana held very still until the slithering sensation in her head abated. Averting her mind's eye from the picture those words created was simple enough; she had trained herself to do it a long time ago, when the thoughts had been at their worst. Her own thoughts, or another's? _So you've bound yourself: torturer to victim, killer to corpse. Never destroy anything you don't love._

The Shattered, she thought, would understand. Something hot twisted inside her chest: a worm of revulsion, or a flare of hope.

Ikora's glove swam into focus, fingers clutching a slim blue volume. “Here. This might help.”

Eriana's eyes strayed from the book in front of her to the jumble it had come out of. Her mind sought a pattern – author, title, edition, colour, age - and came up blank. “How?”

Ikora shrugged. “I have a system.”

“If you say so.” The book's pages were rough and crinkly under her thumb; she couldn't quite suppress a smile. That much, at least, she could still take pleasure in. Most of it was printed in shaky, downward-slanting City script, but flashes of jagged Hive lettering leapt out at her toward the middle. Some translation would be required. Good. She could lose herself in it for a while.

She could lose herself in it forever, retreat into one of the Tower's many studies and wear her Light like a shawl. Shutting the book with a snap, she tucked it under one arm. A puzzle piece slotted into place. “Did you just give me Toland's old thesis notes?”

“Something like that,” Ikora said, with a faint twitch of the lips. “They've never been copied or digitised, so please be careful. And try to have patience with his handwriting.”

Her teaglass sat there on the table, untouched. Following Eriana's gaze, she picked both glasses up and took them over to the counter. She would not pour the full one away, Eriana knew; there were enough people in the City who thought all Guardians should do as the ascetics did, push through hunger pangs and burning thirst to the Light reserves below. She would drain it to the last lukewarm dreg before she gave anyone reason to accuse the Tower of waste.

There was a small pouch in her hand when she returned. It was a twist of coffee beans, even rarer and more precious than the tea. “For Eris. A sleep aid.”

The weight and shape of it triggered a memory: her teammate Sasha, who had been even more susceptible to the relaxing effect of caffeine than most Awoken, and his endless supply of black-market beans. It hadn't taken him long to realise that no-one would ever suspect the Exos in his cohort of stashing illegal food and drink away. _Please, Eriana. Just for a day or two. I'll take your slot on the Icelandic patrol next week. Please._ Several hours later, she'd come down to the initiates' common room to find him sprawled across the sofa, a dazed, blissful look on his face. He'd grinned up at her, and then – perhaps reading the uncertainty in her lights – given her a sheepish little wave. For some reason, that had set them both off laughing. The image began to waver; she latched on tight, holding it in place. Other thoughts circled beyond it, searching for a gap in her defences. She could keep them at bay with some effort, but it was like skirting the edge of a black hole. They pressed in on her, unseen and enormous.

When she came back to herself, she was halfway over the threshold. From inside, Ikora said, “I wish I could offer you more.”

“It doesn't matter.” Outside the hall window, a ship's engines hummed. Eriana shifted from foot to foot and willed her robes to stop rustling. Should she salute? Give thanks? No. Instead, she held out her hand, palm up and fingers splayed. _Makes no difference to me whether she accepts or not,_ she told herself, and Ghost made a disbelieving noise.

When Ikora mirrored the gesture, she felt a wave of relief break across her face. Their fingertips touched. It had been a long time since she last came into direct contact with Ikora's Light; the shock of it almost knocked her back, even buffered as she was by her own internal radiance and two layers of fabric. _Like wildfire,_ she thought, and then: _no, a thunderstorm,_ and then, as the cold underneath it all began to creep in: _wrong twice over, she's a blizzard._ The Light signature took shape inside her head: huge, pitted, shot through with icy equations. She could turn Ikora's hand over, follow the trajectory of a nova bomb through the creases of her glove.

They broke contact. She fought to keep from wondering what Ikora might have seen in her. The expression she wore was difficult to parse: regret, or worry, or some combination of the two. “Be well, Eriana.”

“And you,” Eriana said, on reflex. Then the door closed, and she was alone.

The sense of safety that had surrounded her began to recede. Part of her wanted to sit down against the wall and soak in Ikora's Light residue for a while - but she had work to do, and the image was so pitiful it made her shudder. Time had run away with her again. Sunset would not arrive for another hour or so yet, but the clouds outside were already tinged with pink. A pale sunbeam fell through the window, cutting across the toe of her boot.

She withdrew her foot, edged around it as if she were walking a tightrope. Once the glass was at her back, she broke into a run.

 


End file.
